Sacramentum - Far Away From The Sun- ignoring their EP, this album was by far their best. They had some good riffs in their later albums, but gone was the combination of great guitar work and the dark atmosphere of Far Away From The Sun.

Dimmu Borgir- EDT is close and more refined than For all Tid, but i enjoy the rawness and the almost mid-tempo style of early Dimmu..plus the atmosphere is good as well without relying too much on keyboards

Necrophobic - THe Nocturnal Silence- can't quite put a finger on why i like this one over their others, but its such a dark album and perhaps its cause Strokirk only does vocals on this album

As for the OP's question, I'd have to say Bloodbath is one of those bands for me; RtC was just such a metal album, so unbelievably crunchy, gory, and groovy... I mean, Nightmares was a very good record as well, but with more duds and fewer highlights then Resurrection, and then TFM had good energy, but that's it; pretty much completely forgettable songwriting all-around, basically.

Anthrax's "Fistful Of Metal" definitely destroys all their other albums, which is saying something because they've put out some great stuff. There is just something ferocious and occasionally demented about that album - they were still goofy thrash, but more urgent than they later became.

Rotting Christ for sure, Thy Mighty Contract has all their best riffs and songs, same as Varathron's His Majesty At The Swamp. Both bands went downhill after that.

Rotting Christ released at least 3 fine albums after that: Non Serviam, Triarchy and Theogonia. About Varathron, Walpurgisnacht is as good as His Majesty. Also try their latest Stygian Forces of Scorn, it's the best black metal album coming out of Greece in decades, just on par with their first releases IMO.

The highlights of Nightmares are "Outnumbering The Day", "Eaten", and "The Ascension", versus at least twice that number on RtC, in "Mass Strangulation", "Buried By The Dead", "The Soulcollector", "Trail Of Insects", "Like Fire", and "Cry My Name". Factor in Akerfeldt's much more unique vocals and the much less generic production, and Resurrection easily wins the day

I hate the production on Don't Break the Oath. Great songwriting still, but the guitars give me a headache. And when you throw King's falsetto on top of that, it becomes unlistenable. Melissa has the stellar songwriting, and a nice thick warmness to it. And I love me some nice thick warmness.

Two of my favourite albums, but I'd have to go with Don't Beak the Oath as my fave. When I first heard it, many years ago, I was slightly disappointed as I loved all the acoustic passages on Melissa and DBTO didn't contain any, apart from a few notes at the beginning of Come to the Sabbath and To One Far Away. But over time I began to love it more and more. The solos are out of this world. A couple of slightly weaker tracks in Welcome Princes of Hell and To One Far Away, but then Melissa had Black Funeral, which to me was weaker than the rest. I reckon they should have replaced BF with Burning the Cross or Return of the Vampire. Actually, those 2 tracks would have fitted perfectly on the Nuns Have No Fun EP. Never mind!

Anyhoo, totally agree with the debuts from Testament and Exodus (although both bands released great follow ups). And Flotsam and Jetsam released probably their best album with Doomsday for the Deceiver (again, follow up was great). Also, I think the Big Four all released better sophomore albums. Perhaps Nasty Savage? They released a handful of cracking albums, but their debut is truly fantastic!

The highlights of Nightmares are "Outnumbering The Day", "Eaten", and "The Ascension", versus at least twice that number on RtC, in "Mass Strangulation", "Buried By The Dead", "The Soulcollector", "Trail Of Insects", "Like Fire", and "Cry My Name". Factor in Akerfeldt's much more unique vocals and the much less generic production, and Resurrection easily wins the day

Strange, I Think the strongest songs in NMF are Cancer of The Soul, Brave New Hell, Soul Evisceration, Eaten, Outnumbering the Day and Year of the Cadaver Race.

About the vocals, I think Pete recorded one of the most ferocious performances in death metal, ever.

I agree about Sadus. That first album (whichever title you call it by) was sheer unbridled agression, energy and speed. I think Sadus did what a lot of other thrash and death bands did with their subsequent albums- sacrifice intensity in favor of more technical riffs, arrangements, and so on. But the overall feeling and intensity was lost in the process .

Mercyful Fate. How can anyone not love Melissa? Beats the second album because that was more or less a compilation, albeit an awesome one.

Mind explaining this? I've never heard DBtO described as a compilation before. Not being critical, I'm just interested to hear your opinion.

On the topic at hand, I was discussing this subject with a few of the members here a few months back. I put forward the idea that most bands debuts are the best, as this discussion and the amount of lists written up seem to indicate. My theory is that the time between the band forming and the band recording their first album is often quite a few, if not many, years. This gives the band time to perfect their material. After this initial period, the band is then often contracted to release a follow up, which is often recorded and released within 2 years of the debut. This is often a much shorter period of time than what the band initially had. Add on to that the fact the band would often be touring for much of that time - especially the case with professional full time bands - and the results are often rushed, and not as well executed as what they should be.

This ruthless existance does, so to speak, sort the men from the boys though. The bands that are unable to release quality follow ups often fall by the wayside and make way for the more talented (or perhaps just luckier) bands. NWOBHM and thrash, the two genres I'm most well versed in, are littered with examples of bands being unable to create solid follow ups beyond their debut records. An easier discussion would be to invert this discussion, and name bands that actually improved beyond their debut.

2 bands come to my mind first are Pagan's mind, after excellent Celestial entrance they kept repeating same formula and while releases after that are good, and im listening them often, they are not reaching same "classic" - level.

Almost identical case is Cloudscape, classic first, then fading into the more mediocre/generic level, but still including some excellent songs.

Edit: i was shocked when i found out that Celestial entrance is Pagan's minds second full-length, my bad

I will second the person who said Dimmu. I do enjoy their more commercial albums like Sorte Diaboli, but that first album is hard for them to top, especially since they don't even play "real" Black Metal these days.

I will second the person who said Dimmu. I do enjoy their more commercial albums like Sorte Diaboli, but that first album is hard for them to top, especially since they don't even play "real" Black Metal these days.

I still was holding onto a small thread of hope for them until they released Abrahadabra and I saw their new music videos. All hope lost...all hope lost...

He doesn't use as much range as Pete does, but Pete's general growl tone is still much more standard than Akerfeldt's; I can actually distinguish his growling from the rest of glut out there in DM.

He has a point. On RTC and Unblessing the Purity Akerfeldt sounded like Satan bellowing through my speakers. Who would you be more afraid of? The unholy lord of darkness himself? Or some ferocious, cannibalistic beast? I guess it's more subjective than that.

The Berzerker- The Berzerker. This is their debut after releasing various demos, and holy shit it's still just as good as when I heard it 9 years ago. Extremely chaotic, rapidly delivered vocal lines, short and sweet songs... everything about it is awesome and nothing after it remotely carried a candle to it.

Not sure if anyone posted this one yet, but Rotting Christ. Anything after Thy Mighty Contract is quite poor in comparison. Also, Destruction - Infernal Overkill. Or Passage To Arcturo and Sentence of Death if we're counting EP's.

_________________ADRENALIN"I Will Burn In Hells Fire, But I Sure Have Enjoyed My Life"

Not sure if anyone posted this one yet, but Rotting Christ. Anything after Thy Mighty Contract is quite poor in comparison. Also, Destruction - Infernal Overkill. Or Passage To Arcturo and Sentence of Death if we're counting EP's.

Non Serviam had a horrible production and weak songs. Dead Poem was plain boring and the change in style didn't excite me at all. It was all down hill from there. But that's just my personal feelings. Thy Mighty Contract was their best work in my eyes. They didn't sound like anyone else back then, unlike their later work.

Non Serviam had a horrible production and weak songs. Dead Poem was plain boring and the change in style didn't excite me at all. It was all down hill from there. But that's just my personal feelings. Thy Mighty Contract was their best work in my eyes. They didn't sound like anyone else back then, unlike their later work.

Not sure if anyone posted this one yet, but Rotting Christ. Anything after Thy Mighty Contract is quite poor in comparison. Also, Destruction - Infernal Overkill. Or Passage To Arcturo and Sentence of Death if we're counting EP's.

Actually yes, someone did it just in this very same page.

I'm not sure how you can say that TMC is that great but Non Serviam is that bad, I can't see the huge drop in quality there. Also, If you consider Passage to Arcturo their best, why do you dispose Triarchy? many songs on that album reflects that mid paced highly melodic black metal portrayed on the Ep, whereas Non Serviam was faster and straightforward like the debut. IMO, Passage and Triarchy are the closer Rotting Christ has been to the hellenic sound portrayed by Varathron and Necromantia.

Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 2:07 amPosts: 392Location: United States of America

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 6:38 pm

Hate Eternal - Conquering the ThroneI've always looked at Doug Cerrito as being the reason why this is the most focused and memorable Hate Eternal album, even though he wrote only three tracks from the album. Maybe he rubbed off on Rutan a little because the quality here is coherent in a way that stands out to me from the monotone of everything since the debut.

Deeds of Flesh - Trading PiecesAlong with the debut EP Gradually Melted, the first releases from Deeds are the best and definitely the most unique in their career. Their songs became interchangeable after Path of the Weakening and really just less inspired I think. Good of course, but just a bit stale, even with all their new tech-death features.